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So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.

Philip Johnson

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Philip Johnson
Age: 98 †
Born: 1906
Born: July 8
Died: 2005
Died: January 25
Architect
Art Historian
Cleveland
Ohio
Philip Cortelyou Johnson
Phillip Johnson
Delight
Pure
Goes
Open
Whatever
Form
Anything
Floodgates
Origin

More quotes by Philip Johnson

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Glibness will get your anywhere.
Philip Johnson
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I think the collectors have made an enormous contribution, not only to the market but to painters themselves... These people that buy, that set standards, make everyone else itch to emulate.
Philip Johnson
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When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
Philip Johnson
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I hate the celebrity architect thing. I just do my work. The press comes up with this stuff and it sticks. I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists. It's demeaning.
Philip Johnson
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Faith? Haven't any. I'm not a nihilist or a relativist. I don't believe in anything but change. I'm a Heraclitean - you can't step in the same river twice.
Philip Johnson
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Scientific naturalism is a story that reduces reality to physical particles and impersonal laws, [and] portrays life as a meaningless competition among organisms that exist only to survive and reproduce.
Philip Johnson
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In my own work, I'd say I'm a classicist, but I look everywhere for my solutions. I don't study the toilet-living habits of my clients, although that's a popular approach. First, I think of every building in history that has been similar in purpose. Then I think of the functional program - that's a major part of the study.
Philip Johnson
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Concrete you can mold, you can press it into - after all, you haven't any straight lines in your body. Why should we have straight lines in our architecture? You'd be surprised when you go into a room that has no straight line - how marvelous it is that you can feel the walls talking back to you, as it were.
Philip Johnson
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Pick very few objects and place them exactly.
Philip Johnson
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I used to think that each phase of life was the end. But now that my view on life is more or less fixed, I believe that change is a great thing. In fact, it's the only real absolute in the world.
Philip Johnson
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I wouldn't build a building if it wasn't of interest to me as a potential work of art. Why should I?
Philip Johnson
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Architects are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can turn down some clients, but we've both got to say yes to someone if we want to stay in business.
Philip Johnson
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I guess I can't be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.
Philip Johnson
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In our greatest universities, naturalism - the doctrine that nature is all there is - is the virtually unquestioned assumption that underlies not only natural science but intellectual work of all kinds.
Philip Johnson
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I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it to make something new of it not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.
Philip Johnson
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I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.
Philip Johnson
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Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody.
Philip Johnson
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[Evolution] doesn't mean God-guided, gradual creation. It means unguided, purposeless change. The Darwinian theory doesn't say that God created slowly. It says that naturalistic evolution is the creator, and so God had nothing to do with it.
Philip Johnson
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American megalomania is largely responsible for the growth of the Skyscraper School.
Philip Johnson
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Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.
Philip Johnson